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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: A big, warm welcome to my new co host Sarah Dowdy.

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Speaker 1: And Sarah just came back from Boston and had an

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Speaker 1: interesting tale to tell I did. Um. I was in

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Speaker 1: Boston a little while ago, and I was walking around

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Speaker 1: the North End kind of on a Cannoli tour, I'll

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Speaker 1: be honest, um, but a plaque caught my attention, Um,

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Speaker 1: and it was commemorating the site where the Sacco and

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Speaker 1: Vinzetti defense committee functioned from N seven. Seems like it

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Speaker 1: was kind of operating as maybe a yoga studio now

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Speaker 1: judging by the number of people with Matt's headed in,

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Speaker 1: but it looked like it was the site of an

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Speaker 1: important historical event. It was. And we've actually gotten a

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Speaker 1: lot of read requests for these second vent Setti trial,

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Speaker 1: so I'm glad we're doing this today. Um. But they

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Speaker 1: were two Italian immigrants accused of murder back in the

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenties. But to give a little background, maybe we

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Speaker 1: should talk about their lives before they got here. Yeah, um,

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Speaker 1: Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Venzetti both immigrated nineteen o eight.

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Speaker 1: Um Sacco was an edge tremmor at a shoe factory

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Speaker 1: in Massachusetts, Venzetti a fish peddler in Plymouth. So pretty uh,

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Speaker 1: basic guys. And they were both involved in a lot

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Speaker 1: of anarchist activities, which is sort of where the trouble starts.

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Speaker 1: They had both written for the Chronica Staversiva. Sorry if

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Speaker 1: I'm not pronouncing that correctly, but it was an Italian

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Speaker 1: anarchist newsletter, and so their names were already on the

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Speaker 1: list of people to watch at the time. And they

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Speaker 1: both belonged to the Grippo Autonomo sorry again, UM, an

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Speaker 1: anarchist cell in East Boston, UM that was really into

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Speaker 1: the violent overthrow of the government. So probably not thing

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Speaker 1: to be involved in. No lots of discovered bomb plots

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Speaker 1: with that particular group. So to go back to what

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Speaker 1: they're actually accused of. On April fifteenth, in nineteen twenty,

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Speaker 1: these two men were outside a shoe factory and they

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Speaker 1: had the payroll something about fifteen thousand dollars and they

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Speaker 1: were both shot and killed by a group of men,

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Speaker 1: and the eyewitnesses say that the robbers looked Italian, and

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Speaker 1: that's definitely where the troubles started. So they had I believe,

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Speaker 1: seen a buick that the men had gone away in.

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Speaker 1: So the police started with that one particular clue. They

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Speaker 1: were going to look for a buick, and they found

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Speaker 1: one in a nearby town at a garage, and I

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Speaker 1: think they talked to the mechanic and said that, you know,

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Speaker 1: if anyone came to call on it, let them know.

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Speaker 1: So when Saccho and Vinzetti showed up to carrying your pistols, unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: so good, nothing's working out for They showed up to

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Speaker 1: pick up the car, and of course the mechanic gave

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Speaker 1: a call into the police and told Saco Vansetti that

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Speaker 1: they didn't want to pick up the car right then.

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Speaker 1: It had the wrong plates, so they should come back.

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Speaker 1: And when they did return, the police were waiting for them.

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Speaker 1: And they also happened to lie to the police, which

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Speaker 1: later at the trial was used as a consciousness of

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Speaker 1: guilt excuse. Yeah. Over the course of the trial, there

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Speaker 1: were a lot of different stories that came out from

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Speaker 1: both of them. Vinzetti later said he was kind of

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Speaker 1: trying to protect his friends and fellow anarchists, but it's

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Speaker 1: not really going to fly in a Court of long Um.

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Speaker 1: But the trial in general ended up being a real mess.

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Speaker 1: Um Judge Webster there of the Massachusetts Superior Court who

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Speaker 1: tried the case, Um, here's a little language warning coming up.

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Speaker 1: It already called them anarchist bastards. So his opinion was

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Speaker 1: clearly skewed from the start, and a lot of other

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Speaker 1: problems that a really incompetent lawyer, even though he was

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Speaker 1: very invested in the case, he was just not up

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Speaker 1: to up to par when I don't I don't think

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Speaker 1: he was a local and he wasn't really familiar with

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Speaker 1: how things went in that part of the country. And

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Speaker 1: the jury was also very, very specially hand picked in

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Speaker 1: a way that wasn't impartial either. Yeah, and the witnesses

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Speaker 1: were kind of browbeaten, um people who sort of knew,

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Speaker 1: you know, knew something about their alibis. The Italian with

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Speaker 1: witnesses were especially pressured. Uh. It was just all a

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Speaker 1: big mess. And adding to the confusion, Saco and Vanzetti

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Speaker 1: didn't speak great English, and their interpreter, It's very possible,

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Speaker 1: wasn't even answering, wasn't giving them the questions it does.

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Speaker 1: They weren't getting the right questions and he may or

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Speaker 1: may not have been relaying the correct answers, so they

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Speaker 1: eventually replaced the first translator with someone else. But when

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Speaker 1: there's a language barrier, that's a big deal. It is

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Speaker 1: so Zacco and vin City were found guilty by the

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Speaker 1: jury in July fourte and sentenced to death, but the

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Speaker 1: trial went on for another what seven years? Six years afterwards,

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Speaker 1: the debate went on, for sure, UM, people kept on

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Speaker 1: calling for a retrial, and why this case is so

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Speaker 1: famous and why people are still talking about it is UM.

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Speaker 1: The effect after the trial, UM, intellectuals and leftists really

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Speaker 1: took up. UM took up the cause of getting these

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Speaker 1: guys a new trial, for one thing, because it had

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Speaker 1: been so unfair UM. But also a lot of people

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Speaker 1: felt that they had been UM. They they've been tried

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Speaker 1: on their anarchists police, not exactly and for the time well,

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Speaker 1: and some of it didn't even make sense to go

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Speaker 1: to the specifics of the trial. They were talking about

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Speaker 1: identifying these men, you know, as the people who came

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Speaker 1: to commit the murder. And one of their eyewitnesses was

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Speaker 1: someone who who originally had said that no, she couldn't

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Speaker 1: tell where from where she was who it was because

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Speaker 1: she had seen him from a distance of sixty eight

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Speaker 1: feet away and originally said, you know that, no, she

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Speaker 1: couldn't recognize him, but then was giving really detailed descriptions

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Speaker 1: of say, his hand. And there were other people who

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Speaker 1: again at the time said maybe they weren't even there,

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Speaker 1: they weren't looking, or when they saw guns they had hidden,

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Speaker 1: and then later said no, they could identify these men,

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Speaker 1: but there never was a strong identification. Actually, in the beginning,

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Speaker 1: many of the police officers had said that they thought

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Speaker 1: it was a gang of professional criminals and not you know,

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Speaker 1: to immigrants who had absolutely nothing on their records other

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Speaker 1: than these anarchist activities. UM. And that actually, you know,

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Speaker 1: the gang of professionals kind of seemed even more plausible

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Speaker 1: when Um Felostino Madeiras, who was already under a sentence

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Speaker 1: from murder. This is a bit after Um after the trial,

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Speaker 1: actually confessed to the crime that he did it with

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Speaker 1: the Joe Morelli gang, So, you know, a group of

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Speaker 1: seasoned criminals, not a fishmonger and shoe factory tremmor Well.

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Speaker 1: And another thing about the trial, they never even tried

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Speaker 1: to trace where the money would have gotten from this robbery,

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Speaker 1: where did that fifteen thousand dollars go because neither Sacho

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Speaker 1: nor Vanzetti had it in their bank accounts, nor had

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Speaker 1: they change anything about their lifestyles, nor did the people

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Speaker 1: in their lives seem to have any more money. So

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Speaker 1: if we can't identify them and they don't have the money,

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Speaker 1: you know, where is it? What was coming? What happened

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Speaker 1: except the prejudice in the court and the judge who

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Speaker 1: over and over again gave these ridiculous I mean, you

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Speaker 1: can read his summaries. One of them, I think at

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Speaker 1: near the end of the court is twenty five thousand

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Speaker 1: words about how what they've done was fair and they

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Speaker 1: don't need a retrial. But it's clearly not even remotely

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Speaker 1: objective if you give it a read. Yeah, And and

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Speaker 1: just to show um, you know how concerned people were.

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Speaker 1: There were demonstrations all around the world after after this trial,

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Speaker 1: and especially nearing the execution date UM, which was a

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Speaker 1: long time after they were UH tried, um seven years

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Speaker 1: they were in jail. UM. The governor of the state

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Speaker 1: UH set up an independent advisory committee that had Harvard President,

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Speaker 1: m T President, a former judge UH trying to you know,

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Speaker 1: decide if the trial had been fair. One good signifier

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Speaker 1: of how concerned people were about whether this trial was

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Speaker 1: fair is UM. The governor actually felt compelled to make

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Speaker 1: an independent advisory committee UM, consisting of Harvard's president M. T.

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Speaker 1: S President, a former judge UM, to actually go over everything.

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Speaker 1: Instead of UM. This would be, you know, to decide

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Speaker 1: if they were going to do a retrial or not UM,

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Speaker 1: or you know, whether he was going to issue clemency UM.

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Speaker 1: He decided not to. The advisory committee stood with him. UM.

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Speaker 1: So they were out of luck again. And when you

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Speaker 1: look at some of the things that happened during the trial,

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Speaker 1: it seems impossible that they didn't have a retrial. At

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Speaker 1: one point, I think they had a ballistics expert, or

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Speaker 1: at least an officer of the law, who had pre

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Speaker 1: arranged with the prosecutor how he wanted to present the

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Speaker 1: evidence of the gun that Sacho had, and they arranged

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Speaker 1: it to say the expert couldn't come in and say

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Speaker 1: that it was shot from Sacho's gun because it wasn't,

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Speaker 1: and he said that would be perjury. I can't come

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Speaker 1: into a court of blond say that. So instead they

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Speaker 1: arranged the language beforehand. So what the prosecutor said, and

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Speaker 1: what the expert answered made it sound like some double

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Speaker 1: negatives going on exactly. And when the court interpreted it

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Speaker 1: to the jury, that of course is how they interpreted it.

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Speaker 1: And for some reason the defense attorney didn't pick up

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Speaker 1: that line of questioning, and so it was just dropped.

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Speaker 1: He was pretty hapless, it seemed. Well. And later when

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Speaker 1: the expert came in and told that this happened, you

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Speaker 1: would have think you would think that that would be

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Speaker 1: grounds for a retrial right there. Yeah. In nineteen six nine,

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Speaker 1: a Supreme Court Justice uh William Douglas actually wrote that

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Speaker 1: someone reading the courtroom transcript would have difficulty believing that

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Speaker 1: the trial in which it deals took place in the

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Speaker 1: United States. It was just that backward. Some of its

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Speaker 1: heartbreaking when you are reading the transcript. I was reading

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Speaker 1: one little excerpt between came from Bossoco or Vanzetti and

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Speaker 1: the lawyer, and you can tell that he doesn't understand

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Speaker 1: the questions because they're asking him, you know, are you

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Speaker 1: a Bolshevik and he says he doesn't know a Bolshevism means,

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Speaker 1: said are you a Soviet? And no, he doesn't know

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Speaker 1: what Soviet means? And then they said, are you a communist?

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Speaker 1: And he answered that yes, that he bought some books

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Speaker 1: on astronomy. So we know the trial didn't go well. Um,

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Speaker 1: but you know, do we have any information now that

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Speaker 1: helps us Now did these guys commit the crime? Because

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Speaker 1: it became did become, as you had mentioned, quite the

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Speaker 1: kosleb of the day. Their second lawyer had spent quite

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Speaker 1: a bit of money putting out pamphlets and things and

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Speaker 1: very much trying to use the media to their advantage

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Speaker 1: to get a fair trial for these men. So do

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Speaker 1: we think they were innocent men involved in this trial

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Speaker 1: and just condemned before it ever started, or was there

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Speaker 1: some truth that maybe they had done some things they

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Speaker 1: shouldn't have done. Well later FBI ballistics reports kind of

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Speaker 1: suggested that Sacho probably was guilty, then Zetti probably not.

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Speaker 1: But there's a lot of disagreement on it still. I mean,

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Speaker 1: in part because all the evidence was so shoddy and

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Speaker 1: the witnesses testimonies are skewed and unreliable. Because there wasn't

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Speaker 1: a retrial, it's hard to tell even today when some

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Speaker 1: of the evidence was messed with. Two. I think the

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Speaker 1: gun was put together and taken apart so many different times.

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Speaker 1: At some point they weren't sure if it had been

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Speaker 1: damaged beyond beliefs exactly. And there was a hat that

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Speaker 1: was found at the crime scene that they made Sacho

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Speaker 1: try on and it turned out there was a hole

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Speaker 1: in it and someone said, oh, it was from a

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Speaker 1: bullet and then no, Actually the police had actually very

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Speaker 1: proto o Jays and it is UM. And I mean

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Speaker 1: another thing to keep in mind is just the climate

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Speaker 1: of the country at the time, and it was not

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Speaker 1: These guys were Italian immigrants and they were known anarchists. UM.

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Speaker 1: And that was a good step towards being guilty. Just

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Speaker 1: to start, UM. It was after World War One. Unemployment

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Speaker 1: was really high, UM, the economy was bad, UM. And

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Speaker 1: there was a red scare going on, which is not

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Speaker 1: the red scare that we normally think of. UM. You know, McCarthy, McCarthy. Um.

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Speaker 1: It was long before that. UM kind of started by uh,

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Speaker 1: President Woodrow Wilson's Attorney General Palmer, who had a bomb

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Speaker 1: explode outside of his house and then just of went

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Speaker 1: on an anti communist, UM, anti anarchist crusade, UM, kind

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Speaker 1: of gunning for a presidential bid himself. A lot of

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Speaker 1: people thought, uh, but he was responsible sort of for

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Speaker 1: heating up the the country with all this you know,

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Speaker 1: red fear. And you can see some of that in

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Speaker 1: the trial transcripts again or even from things the judge said,

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of examples talking about war because

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Speaker 1: sac on Venzetti were also draft dodgers, which did not

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Speaker 1: endear them to the jury. Did not help in Massachusetts,

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Speaker 1: and so they were asked several questions, you know, like

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Speaker 1: do you love your country? And oh, well, you ran

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Speaker 1: away from your country? You know, would you run away

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Speaker 1: from your wife if she needed you? Into these ridiculous,

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Speaker 1: hyperbolic just arguments, but the judge was talking about the

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Speaker 1: pure line of truth and elevating them on the blindness

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Speaker 1: and patriotism and in general inflaming the jury. And and

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Speaker 1: just a few years before this crime, there were a

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Speaker 1: lot of massive USTs and deportations, um due to Palmer

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Speaker 1: and um the creation of the General Intelligence Division, which

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Speaker 1: was actually headed up by Jedger Hoover, not a definitely

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Speaker 1: anti communist there um. And you know, immigration, uh quotas

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Speaker 1: started coming into play. Um. So there was a lot

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Speaker 1: of ethnic fear going on to well, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of people say and Saco Venzetti later said that the

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Speaker 1: reason they lied in the beginning was because of fear,

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Speaker 1: because of all these things that were going on. And

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Speaker 1: they had recently had a friend, a fellow anarchist, arrested

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Speaker 1: and put in custody and wasn't allowed to communicate with anyone,

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Speaker 1: and I think he committed suicide. Yeah, he supposedly jumped

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Speaker 1: off fourteenth floor of a building. And that's about the

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Speaker 1: time they had decided maybe they should start getting rid

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Speaker 1: of all of their anarchist pamphlets and such right as

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Speaker 1: they got arrested. And then Vanzetti later said, um, that's

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Speaker 1: what he was doing. He was helping friends clear out there,

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Speaker 1: um anarchist literature, kind of preparing for May Day raids.

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Speaker 1: And it's been suggested that sac On Venzetti were actually

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Speaker 1: on some sort of list and that maybe this was

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Speaker 1: just this particular charge was trumped up to get them

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Speaker 1: out at any cost and to get them deported. Sacho

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Speaker 1: and Vanzetti were actually executed on August twenty three, nine seven,

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Speaker 1: and before they were killed, Saco gave a quote, but

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Speaker 1: what good is the evidence and what good is the argument?

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Speaker 1: They're determined to kill us regardless of evidence, of law,

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Speaker 1: of decency of everything. If they give us a delay tonight,

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Speaker 1: it will only mean that they will kill us next week.

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Speaker 1: Let us finish tonight and weary of waiting seven years

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Speaker 1: to die when they know all the time and they

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Speaker 1: intend to kill us. End quote. So that gives you

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Speaker 1: an idea of what those seven years of appeals and

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Speaker 1: motions were like for Zacco and Benzetti when they were

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Speaker 1: sure that they were going to be executed, and they

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Speaker 1: were yeah, um, fifty years after their death, um, the

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Speaker 1: Massachusetts Governor, Michael D. Coccus um is she'd a proclamation

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Speaker 1: saying that they had not been treated justly and that

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Speaker 1: no stigma should be associated with their names. Kind of

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Speaker 1: a retrial too late, but um nevertheless, but something. Yeah. So,

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Speaker 1: whether you believe they're innocent or guilty, I think we

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Speaker 1: can say with fairness that their trial should have been redone.

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Speaker 1: And if you'd like to learn more about controversial court cases,

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Speaker 1: please check out the website and the Stuff You Missed

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Speaker 1: in History Class blog at www dot how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

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